Not Getting Over It

Michele reminds me every year that we shouldn't rush through today.  We always tend to push the fast-forward button on the darkness of the crucifixion in order to get to the light of resurrection.  Of course it's a bit of an exercise in trying to un-know something, but it is important in a lot of ways, especially to a culture that absolutely denies death and wants to avoid suffering at pretty much any cost.
Pretty much anyone who grieves is likely to hear someone, usually a well meaning someone, recommend that they, "just get on with life."  So much of our processing of death and dying now involves ideas of a "better" place and some sort of utopian vision of heaven that we are often inclined to just expect ourselves to get over the grieving process with a snap of some emotional fingers.  But it doesn't work that way.
I suspect that the lives of the Apostles were forever shaped by their grief over Jesus' death.  Yes, I know they experienced the resurrection, but they still talked an awful lot about the cross, I think that their experience of the darkness made their understanding of the light all that more profound.  And yet, in most churches Good Friday services are becoming anachronisms.  Part of it has to do with the fact that people don't get the day off any more, but I think something has to do with the fact that we would just prefer not to deal with the blood and guts of the crucifixion.  Let's get to the flowers and jelly beans already.
But this is wrong, we don't let ourselves grieve.  Did you ever consider that even though Jesus was resurrected, the disciples still had to say goodbye? He wasn't going to hang around for very long.  Can you imagine that?  Not only do you lose your teacher and your leader, you actually get proof that he's something beyond pretty much anything you could have imagined, and then he's still gone.
And you're on your own, to try to figure out what to do without him, which is where grieving really comes in.
It really sets in after the funeral is over and the friends and family have all gone home.  It sends a little spike though you on holidays and birthdays.  It forms a lump in your throat whenever you're having an otherwise pleasant moment and something reminds you of what you've lost, and what is absent.
Can you imagine what might have been going through Peter's mind on Pentecost as he tells everyone how wonderful Jesus was, and what this all means?  What if he was thinking about how much he wished Jesus could be there to hear him, and be with all of them as the Spirit started to burn among them?
I can only compare that to the thoughts that I have about my brother's absence from our family.  It's been nearly 10 years since he passed, and I still feel the absence, particularly when things are good.  There is a part missing that should have been.  By now there should be a wife and kids, by now we should be planning family vacations together, I see it in other families, and I feel that presence of an absence.  It hits at holidays and the beach, it can be rather unpleasant, or it can just be like an old acquaintance that stands silently by.  I think that Peter and the Apostles probably lived with Jesus like that.  There had to be regret about all the things they didn't get when he was there.  I think that when they did things like participate in the Lord's Supper or say the Lord's prayer, they had to feel a little sting.
This means that for the church to deny or minimize the grief, is to ignore a fact and a feeling that must have been central to the formation of the community. In John's account of the resurrection, you know the one with Jesus and Mary in the garden, you can feel this connection between the grief and the joy.  The resurrection doesn't negate the pain, it just makes it purposeful, it just means its not the last word.
The author Frederick Buechner crystallizes the nature of our existence and God's creation in the following: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don't be afraid."
"Good Friday," is a terrible thing, no two ways about it.  Easter is a beautiful thing, a hopeful thing, but it wouldn't be anything without the darkness.  They are both necessary, don't be afraid.